"Moderna’s COVID Vaccine" Topic

link

One week ago I discussed the announcement of preliminary results for a COVID-19 vaccine announced by Pfizer and BioNTech. Since then Moderna, a biotechnology company based in Cambridge, MA, also announced preliminary results from their phase 3 vaccine trial – showing almost 95% effectiveness in preventing the disease. This is great news. Let's go over the company, the vaccine, and the data.

Moderna was founded in 2010 as a biotechnology company dedicated to mRNA (messenger RNA) technology. So far they have not marketed a single therapeutic or vaccine, so if they get approval for their mRNA COVID vaccine that will be their first. They developed the vaccine with a grant from the US government's Warp Speed initiative (unlike Pfizer who had the resources to fund their own research). The development of each of these vaccines cost over two billion dollars.

Like the Pfizer vaccine, the Moderna vaccine (called mRNA-1273) is also based on mRNA technology. The mRNA is a single strand of genetic material that is copied from the DNA of a gene in the nucleus. It then travels outside the nucleus to the cytoplasm where it connects to the ribosome, which reads the genetic instructions from the mRNA in order to assemble the protein for which it codes. The concept behind an mRNA vaccine is that mRNA that codes for a viral protein is injected with carriers to get it into cells. The cells then make viral proteins from the mRNA, and those proteins provoke an immune response which will target the virus.

There are currently 17 mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in development, included the two discussed here. The advantages of mRNA vaccines are that they are considered safer than DNA vaccines, they can be targeted more specifically than whole virus vaccines, and they are safer than live attenuated virus vaccines because there is no risk of infection. They can also be manufactured more quickly than other vaccine types because we have the technology to rapidly replicate mRNA. If approved, these will be the first mRNA vaccines approved by the FDA.

It's the Dolly Parton vaccine.
link
$1,000,000 USD seed money doesn't hurt.
I cracked up when I read that some were singing "Vaccine" to "Jolene".

What does that have to do with t72 armour?

I don't know about t72 armour, but $1 USDM has way less than 1% to do with the cost of producing a vaccine. It won't even start to fund the referenced phase 3 trial.

I was trying to be cheeky since the only time I interact with "Dolly Parton" is the T-72A armour upgrade package.

Dolly's donation was to Vanderbilt. They used it to start the research on the vaccine development.
Hey. It's a good story, and Dolly is universally loved. And if you don't, I do not wish to speak with you.

Dr Martin, in WWII, it would have been "Mae West".